I am hoping a few people will come on board soon for some OC Mod Balanced games. Clausewitz (Phil) and I sometimes play through the week (usually daytime) but this depends on Phil having a day off. We also usually play Saturday and Sunday mornings from about 7:00 am Australian Eastern Standard Time. We play on GSC server but I am open to other possibilities.

I WILL PLAY ANYTIME THAT SUITS YOU!

However, if you nominate a time that suits you and we translate that to Australian time, I will play ANY time ANY day of the week. I will get up at midnight and play to dawn (my time) if that suits you.

INSTALLING OC MOD BALANCED

Currently, I don't have a dedicated installation process for OC Mod Balanced as it is still in the fine balancing phase. Basic balancing is all done. To play it;

1. Have a copy of Cossacks BTW 1.35 (with key). 2. Install it and then the Baddog Mod (off the disk or steam copy). 3. Install OC Mod, all patches via the standard patch links. 4. Ask to get on my mailing list. 5. Receive links to download updated mods01.gs1 and mods02.gs1 files from my Skydrive (part of Outlook) 6. In your Cossacks OC Mod directory find the current mods01.gs1 and mods02.gs1 files and rename them to mods01.bak and mods02.bak 7. Drag and drop my new downloaded mods01.gs1 and mods02.gs1 files into the directory.

Really, it is just a simple download and a file drag and drop at that stage. You will need adminstrator access to your PC to do this. This process presumes very basic file handling skills.

TRAINING

I will very soon have a headset with microphone so we can communicate via Skype or something similar. I am willing to train people and give them all the tricks, tactics and strategies I know. Soon the students will be beating the teacher no doubt. So we can do training if necessary first. I won't just throw you in the deep end and beat you up before you gain familiarity in the game. Accomplished players of wide experience like Daddio will soon adjust and be beating me regularly anyway.

POSTSCRIPT

How does OC Mod Balanced compare to OC Mod if you have played OC Mod? Main points are;

1. Russia is a full power again with production to match other 18th nations. It can also make 8 towers and as many stone and wood walls as other 18th nations now. 2. Ukraine has been de-powered as it was overpowereed before. It is slow to start but it masses up very well by late 17th C. Hetmen now produce in 18th and make in mass numbers. Serdiuks have more shot power so they are still useful in 18th. 3. Turkey now gets an 18th Janissary which is better than 17th Janissary but still does not match standard 18th C muskets. 4. Bedouin for Turkey and Algeria have been strengthened (better shot) and build faster. 5. Life points for all infantry have been standardised at 350. Peasant life points are now 200 not 100. 6. Muskets have had their fire rates slowed a bit more (about 25%) and their coal and iron burn costs increased by about 25%. 7. Geo is removed from 17th C to 18th C and made very expensive. 8. Cannon burn more coal and iron to shoot. (Cannon reload time probably needs to be slowed like the muskets have been.) 9. Howitzers have a slight range improvement and can now hit stone walls too. 10. Fast walking 17th C infantry has had its speed slowed from 32 to 28. Standard 17th Infantry speed is 24. Algerian light swords and archers still move at speed 32. Non-imperial nations without fast infantry can make fast pikes from diplomatic centre. These can be put in formation but not upgraded. England can make these too, despite having fast barracks pikes as well. These help block fast pikes until standard pikes can arrive for defence. 11. Three imperial nations (Bavaria, Spain and Piemont) can now make up to 8 log cabins. 12. Ukraine can make log cabins in the 18th C.

There are no bugs that are show stoppers except perhaps the game freezing if unit levels get too high, like over 6,500 per player. The log cabin doesnt have any build animations so it looks a bit silly (workers working at vacant ground) till it is built. Some literals (messages) about costs ánd upgrades are wrong. I haven't cleared up that area yet.

Games are played on 2x size land maps, open plains, lean mines, 1000 starting resources, no peasant captures, expensive cannon, no balloon. These settings suit the mod and produce the best games. Shipyards are banned unless stated otherwise. By gentleman's agreement, never build enemy buildings if you capture an enemy centre and accidently get a peasant out of it. Burn the centre down and delete any enemy peasants you get. By gentleman's agreement only produce about enough officers for formations. You can produce a few more officers for home base defence if you like. Don't attack with officers except if you have a few left over from defeated formations and they are already near the enemy base. It's ok to bring a couple of extra officers to knock down wood fences if you like but you will probably find mercenary archers and/or mercenary sich cossacks better suited to that task anyway. If you capture enemy buildings do not use them to produce, just burn them down. Other than that pretty much anything goes. If you capture enemy artillery you can delete it or keep it and use it as you wish and according to the situation.

The above settings and rules give a wide variety of games depending on random starting positions and the luck of the draw with hills and mines etc. We play random nations but you can pick a nation or go random as you wish. Games can take anything from 10 or 15 minutes to 2 or 3 hours or more. Long games can ended by one player agreeing to surrender or both players agreeing that it is a draw. It is also possible to agree to save it and to take up the game again on another day. Clause and I are unusually stubborn so we sometimes battle it out for very long games. It's always possible to pause by agreement for phone calls, door knocks, comfort breaks and coffee breaks. But I am sure everone on this site is used to this style of game netiquette.

Nominate a regular time one or more days per week which suit you. Post your regular times and time zone. I will convert times and we can meet in the GSC Shell. I will play anytime day or night. So if there is a special time that suits you but is like 2 am (02:00) for me that is no matter, I will get online at that time.

From my point of view, I can also regularly be online on any of my evenings , 7 days a week, from 7 pm (19:00) to midnight (24:00) AEST - Australian Eastern Standard Time.

Also, I can be online Saturday and Sunday from 05:00 to 12:00 AEST. (Don't forget I am on the other side of the dateline to the USA.) Saturdays and Sundays, Phil will be there at least part of the time. If we could some 2v2 games going that would be good. Have to split me and Phil until other players adjust to OC Mod balanced.

In summary, my evenings and my Sat and Sun mornings are good. However, If you have some other time that suits you just name it and I can be there.

I will meet you in the GSC Shell at that time. (I used New York's Eastern Daylight Time to get that conversion.)

I will post one more update to the mods02 file and give you the link. I will also update this message, or post following your next message, with confirmation of the time and date stamps you should have on your mods01 and mods02 files in Cossacks OC Mod (balanced). So hopefully we will have no synch errors. OC_Clausewitz and I have had very few problems with sync errors. If I test my changes and all people have the same files installed then everything is good.

If you have Skype we should set each other up as contacts on Skype. That way we can see when the other is on line. And you can always block contact when you dont want to be distracted. My next step is to get a headset with a mic.

There has been one late change to mods02.gs1 file. Link sent and I will hold this version steady until Saturday. The file versions you should have in OC Mod (Balanced) are (in Australian date format which dd/mm/yyyy);

mods01.gs1 22/04/2013 8:48 am mods02.gs1 11/07/2013 10:33 am

I shortly add my playing manual as an attachment. It might prove useful (if you don't get lost in the detail).